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Each year the Hillcrest Committee receives cancer research grant proposals from OHSU (Oregon Health and Science University). Our focus group committee chooses which grant(s) we will fund based on the research topic. The number of grants that we fund is determined by the amount of donations we receive at the annual Hillcrest Ball. Each special ‘seed’ grant requires $50,000. This type of grant is designed to support the initial stages of a research project, often providing the necessary resources to develop preliminary data or a pilot study. Below are samples of some of the research projects that the Hillcrest Committee has had the honor of funding:
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents between 15-20 percent of diagnosed breast cancer cases and though it kills faster than other types of breast cancer, it has few effective treatment options. A deeper understanding of the molecular basis of this disease would aid in development of effective therapeutic strategies. We have recently developed a model of TNBC which has many of the same qualities as observed in patient samples. We propose to study this model to learn about the differences between different types of TNBC tumors. This information will be used to identify therapies that could be used to treat patients with different types of TNCB tumors and will also provide information about how different cells in a tumor contribute to disease.
Treatment with immune modulating/activating drugs has revolutionized cancer
therapy over the past decade. These drugs can be used alone or in combination with radiation and chemotherapy to achieve these improved results. Recently, there has been early clinical data showing that if tumors are injected or infused with microscopic particles of metals such as gold or platinum prior to radiation therapy, the radiotherapy is more effective at killing what would otherwise be treatment resistant tumors. The goal of this work is to understand how and why tumor cells die following combination treatment with nanoparticles and radiation so that we can combine these treatments with appropriate immune modulating agents in future clinical trials.
Cyclin dependent kinase inhibitors (CDKi) are a very effective therapy for patients
with metastatic hormone receptor positive human epidermal growth factor 2 receptor negative breast cancer (HRBC). However, nearly all HRBC tumors eventually develop resistance to CDKi with subsequent tumor spread and growth. As part of an ongoing investigation to identify predictors of CDKi therapy resistance, we have previously collected tumor tissue samples from patients with metastatic HRBC prior to and after experiencing disease progression on CDKi therapy. In this proposal, we will use RNA sequencing technology to investigate changes in the expression of several genes that are important in controlling tumor cell growth in order to develop new treatment approaches to optimally manage HRBC patients that develop resistance to CDKi therapy.